Year: 2018

Hi everybody,
Last week I visited London, UK. Let me start with saying that I love London.
I love the people, who are friendly and polite. And I simply love the whole atmosphere of the city.
The main reason I wanted to visit London again was the Tina Turner Musical.
I’m a big fan of Tina Turner and as she was heavily involved in this musical, I really wanted to see it.
The première of Tina the Musical was at the 17th of April 2018 and Tina Turner herself would be there.
A nice opportunity to see the lady myself.
So after my flight and check-in in my hotel I went to the Aldwych Theatre, where the première would be.
It was still early, around 14.30 hr, but there were already some fans there.
There was a little red carpet. I must say, it looked not that good. Really small and around us was the busy traffic of London.
But I wanted to see more of London, so I went to the National Gallery first and planned to go back to the Aldwych Theatre later on.
The National Gallery is located at Trafalgar Square, where lots of people stand and sit.

The gallery itself is a well maintained gallery with lots of great paintings.
Here are some of them:

After I had seen a lot of paintings I went to the café and ate there something.
After that I went back to the Aldwych Theatre. There I met my Italian friend Davide. There were a bit more fans now.
Tina was expected around 19 hr. so we had to wait a bit.
Slowly the guests kept arriving. We saw Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster, Graham Norton, Ruby Turner, Tali Pelman, Joop and Janine van den Ende and lots more. The tension was building. 😀
Where exactly would Tina arrive? Finally there she was. All the smartphomes went up in the air.
It was amazing and so much fun. Tina Turner and her husband Erwin Bach posed for the photographers and did a quick interview and then they went inside. It was over way too quick!

Here are 2 videos with arrivals from guests. The last one has Tina Turner arriving at the end of the video:

Tina Turner later on after the show: “It’s possible to turn poison into medecine.”

Then I went quickly to Her Majesty’s Theatre, where the Phantom of the Opera is being played.
I love that musical too and hoped that there were still tickets. There were! So I had a wonderful evening with great music.

The next day in the morning I went to the Kyoto Garden in Holland Park.
A small Japanese garden. It was beautiful!
Here are some photos of it:

After the Kyoto Garden I went to the Palace Theatre where “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” would be played.
It was really difficult to get tickets, so I was very happy to finally be able to see this play.
It was awesome! I have never seen anything like this before. What a special effects!
The story is fantastic and the actors are great too.

The next day in the morning I went to Kensington Palace with my friend Davide.
It was a glorious day, hot, 27 degrees. But inside the palace it was all right.
There was an exhibition about Queen Victoria with beautiful jewelry and costumes.
Afterwards we drank and ate something in the restaurant, but that wasn’t really cosy and had not much on the menu.
Here are photos:

And then at night the Tina Turner Musical. I met my friend Christiaan in front of the theatre and we went in to buy some things from the merchandise desk. We were very excited. We already saw some clips and photos and it all looked great.
It was a great evening! Adrienne Warren really is special. She can sing and dance, but she can also act and that isn’t a small thing, because Tina’s life is complicated and there are a lot of emotions to play. She did an excellent job.
So did the rest of the cast. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith plays an excellent Ike Turner.
I also loved Lorna Gayle as Tina’s grandmother. Brilliant!